Cinque Terre: One Morning in Manarola

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After our breakfast in La Spezia, we took the train to the next village in Cinque Terre, Manarola. It was smaller than Riomaggiore, and had a small place to swim. The three of use walked around the village and saw where a landslide had wiped out a section of the hiking trail to Corniglia.

The five villages are connected via hiking trails, but the trail between Manarola and Corniglia was wiped out. I guess this guy still wanted to get to the next village and decided to swim!

By now I wanted a mid-morning snack, so I got myself a slice of farinata, the local version of the Niçoise chickpea socca, but topped with tiny fish.

By now it was almost noon and as we didn’t bring our swimsuits to Manarola, we had to return to La Spezia to pick up our rented car. Our Fiat 500L was parked by a fruit and fish market, but we had to move the car. We found a free parking space in town, and then went for lunch.

Our B&Bs didn’t have kitchens for us to use, so Sami found a pizzeria called La Pia, where we had rustic looking pizzas with the locals. My pizza had tuna and onions; Ryan’s had olives and ham; Sami’s was a double-decker on top of a slice of the chickpea farinata. We ate our fill with a side of pickled vegetables before heading out to get delicious gelato. Once again the pistachio was amazing, so I had that. I’ve had terrible luck finding gelato or ice cream that actually tastes like pistachio, and not just almonds, in Toronto. This was the real deal!

After our treat we hopped back on the train and visited the next village, Monterosso.